Ahead of the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly in June, aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday met with members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) at the national headquarters in Abuja.
In attendance are Senators Abdulaziz Yari, Orji Kalu, Mohammed Musa, and Sadiq Umar.
The APC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu; National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore; and National Women Leader, Beta Edu were also present at the meeting.
Addressing the NWC, Kalu, a Senate President aspirant, said giving every part of the country a pie makes the country beautiful. He argued that the party should not zone the leadership of the yet-to-be inaugurated National Assembly based on the number of votes each zone contributed to the victory of the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu.
According to him, a zone with low votes in the last election can turn out to give a large number of votes to the party in future elections.
Also, Yari, who presented the protest letter by the aggrieved Senators-elect to the APC chairman, urged the party to review the zoning formula reviewed days ago for the purpose of justice and equity.
The APC NWC had on Monday zoned the leadership of the 10th National Assembly.
The party organ zoned the Senate President to the South-South, Senator Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom); Deputy Senate President to the North-West, Senator Barau Jibrin (Kano).
Others are the Speaker of the House of Representatives (North-West) – Abass Tajudeen (Kaduna), and Deputy Speaker South East – Ben Kalu (Abia).
APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, said the South-South zone, which Akpabio represents, has not produced a Senate President since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999.
The zoning formula by the APC has fuelled protests by many high-ranking members of the party including Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State who described it as “an unworkable and skewed arrangement that reinforces injustice”.